Whether textually or subtextually, horror films explore elements of society that upend or terrify. Sometimes the horror comes from the loss of bodily control from foreign invasion (Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)), other times it’s from the very natural act of sexual intercourse and the potential dangers of promiscuity (It Follows (2014)). But where they often make the greatest impact is when the mythological, the supernatural, are woven into the fabric of reality to a degree in which one cannot tell the difference between magic and madness. Stories like Larry Fessenden’s Blackout (2023) or Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) do this beautifully, where the audience isn’t quite sure what to believe or not as they experience the terror of their protagonist. Such is the desired case with director/co-writer Alexander J. Farrell’s (Making A Killer) new project The Beast Within, having its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival 2024, in which the audience’s perspective is entirely through that of a 10-year-old living on an isolated plot of land with her family as she grapples with hard truths for any child to realize.
Caoilinn Springall as Willow in THE BEAST WITHIN. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA.
Young girl Willow (Caoilinn Springall) lives in a secluded estate with her grandfather Waylon (James Cosmo), mother Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings), and father Noah (Kit Harington), in rural England. When not helping with the animals or running errands with her mother, she either reads or works on model of their property. The only real break from her routine is on the occasion of a full moon when her mother takes her father beyond the estate walls and deep into the forest, only for him to return in the morning exhausted and bloodied. Determined to learn the truth, she ventures out after her parents, finally forced to come to grips with a long-held family curse.
Ashleigh Cummings as Imogen in THE BEAST WITHIN. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA.
Beast shares more in common with Pan’s adult fairytale than any other monster story that may immediately come to mind when one thinks of monster-related films. As constructed by co-writers Farrell and Greer Taylor Ellison (Making A Killing), who also served as second unit director, the film is through the lens of Willow’s experience. This means lots of hushed conversations as Willow creeps toward them, looking through windows down on the estate courtyard, and a great deal of evidence that leads her and us to a specific conclusion that the script wishes to make, from start to finish, conjecture until proven otherwise. By using Willow as our way in, there’s a barrier between what the audience knows and doesn’t know, requiring us, like her, to use only the information that’s available in our limited capacity. The trick here, smartly crafted by Farrell and Ellison, is that Willow is, herself, an unreliable protagonist by virtue of her age. She doesn’t know things and can’t fully process the information around her, therefore, what we see, hear, and experience is funneled through her understanding.
This translates into technical elements which bring about unease and discombobulation — its jumpy editing indicative of lost time or focus, body horror with a real or not-real quality brought about by conflation, and the persistent sense of dread that comes from only possessing pieces of information. Though there’s delight to be had within Beast thanks to Daniel Katz’s (Bookworm; House of Darkness) cinematography capturing the natural beauty of the woods which surround the estate, an element that aids in the fairytale quality of the film overall, while also managing to make the starkness and run-down visage of the estate not quite as haunting as it could be. In concert with the narrative, the estate (stylized by production designer Russell De Rozario (Bees Make Honey)) has the look of a place that’s well-worn to the point of unattended. On one hand, this suggests that the people within the home are ambivalent to the state of things, while, on the other, it implies that they have far too many other obstacles to conquer to be concerned with torn wall paper and broken windows. From what we see, Willow doesn’t seem at all concerned about these things, which makes sense if that’s all she’s known. This is why it’s uneasy for us; no matter whether she’s visibly happy or not, why is this normal to her? What does that say about other elements of her experience?
L-R: Caoilinn Springall as Willow and Kit Harington as Noah in THE BEAST WITHIN. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA.
Previously, there’d been mention of fairytales and, in several aspects, Beast matches this description. The location is separated from large populations, the cast is limited to mainly the family of four, the cinematography gives one a sense of magical realism whether in the forest or the home, and the score by composers Jack Halama (Kindred) and Nathan W. Klein (A Woman at Night) includes a few affectations and vocalizations indicative of the folklore subgenre of horror. Especially when Noah imparts the tale of the family unto Willow, there’s a general sense of otherworldliness permeating the edges of the frames and pouring into Willow’s perspective. The trick for audiences is that fairytales are so often warnings, moral lessons to be passed down in order to correct or control behavior, to give someone something to fear in order to be more easily manipulated. For parents with good intentions, this is little more than a method to create enough anxiety to ensure that their children stay mindful while being out in the world. For others, it’s a method to ensure that nothing changes, everything stays the same, and it all exists to serve the parent. Combined with the forced perspective of Willow, audiences are given a tale that’s as disquieting for them as it is mysterious for her.
James Cosmo as Waylon in THE BEAST WITHIN. Photo courtesy of Well Go USA.
In an effort to keep things spoiler-free, the closing of this review will dance a bit in order to comment on why the film is rated as it is: predictability. There’s a certain kind of audience that’s going to see what Farrell and Ellison are going for very quickly and will, by virtue of this, spend the rest of the film waiting to be correct. For all those who can’t predict it, there’s bound to be quite a bit of delight here between Springall’s earthy presentation of Willow, Cummings’s conflicted mother/wife, and Harington’s emotional Noah, and all the wonderful technical aspects of the film that create an atmospheric thriller. But audiences of a certain type will recognize the signs and the twitches and know what The Beast is. As such, all the tension, all the prolonged silences, and even the culminating final confrontation lacks any tension or mystery for we can pierce the veil of the cinematic illusion and recognize the beast within.
Screening during Fantasia International Film Festival 2024.
In select theaters July 26th, 2024.
For more information, head to either the official The Beast Within Fantasia International Film Festival 2024 or Well Go USA webpage.
Final Score: 2.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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